Inside College Basketball

Just Like Old TimesAn undefeated start has Georgetown once again looking like theBeast of the East

For 17 seasons as an assistant coach, Craig Esherick sat quietlyand nondescriptly next to John Thompson on Georgetown's bench,drawing even less attention than the white towel Thompson drapedover his shoulder. Thus it was only natural that Esherick wouldfeel a mite overwhelmed when he took over after Thompson suddenlyresigned on Jan. 8, 1999, just as it was natural for the rest ofthe world to wonder whether this faceless, voiceless adjutant wasup to the job he had unexpectedly inherited. "I was worried,"Esherick concedes when asked how he felt that day. "Then Irealized the only thing I needed to do was win, and that's thecase no matter where you coach."

Normally that's easier said than done, but winning is allEsherick and the Hoyas have done in his second full season at thehelm. When Georgetown defeated 18th-ranked Seton Hall on Mondaynight for the second time in 10 days, it improved its record to16-0 (4-0 in the Big East), the second-best start in Hoyashistory.

Just as the high-profile Thompson's best teams featured glamorousstars like Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Allen Iverson, sothis Georgetown club is reflective of the new man in charge. Theninth-ranked Hoyas have gone largely unnoticed during theirwinning streak--thanks in large part to their milquetoastypreconference schedule--but have thrived thanks to depth and goodchemistry. Through Monday nine players were scoring between 12.6and 7.1 points per game, and 10 were averaging at least 10minutes. Even though four players who previously started are nowcoming off the bench and two freshmen are starters, nobody'scomplaining.

"It's easy to run a team like this," says junior point guardKevin Braswell, who was averaging 6.9 assists (up from 5.3 hissophomore season). "Last year everybody thought he should score20 every game. Now we understand that if we make the extra pass,we get a better shot."

Georgetown's glut of interchangeable parts also answers one ofthe questions about Esherick when he succeeded Thompson: Can herecruit? Esherick got off to a promising start by locking upevery player who had given Thompson a commitment, including MikeSweetney, who was then a 6'8" junior at Oxon Hill (Md.) High.That didn't seem like such a coup last spring, though, whenEsherick popped in a videotape of the Capital Classic all-stargame and was astonished to see that Sweetney had ballooned towell over 300 pounds. "I told him he would have trouble playingfor me if he didn't do something about it," Esherick says.Sweetney shed nearly 50 pounds last summer during his twice-dailyworkouts on the Georgetown campus, and through Monday he was theHoyas' leading scorer (12.6 points a game) and leading rebounder(7.5). One of Esherick's other recruits, 6'6" freshman GeraldRiley, from Milledgeville, Ga., has also been a pleasantsurprise, chipping in with 9.8 points and 3.5 rebounds a game asa starter.

Thompson still attends many home games. Esherick, however, isn'tabout to start feeling overshadowed now. "It's an advantage tohave Coach Thompson around because I can still bounce things offhim," Esherick says. "I'm different than he is, but the way Icoach is the same. I've also kidded him that if I start losing,it's his fault, too."

Notre Dame Beats UConnThe Story Of Ruth

On the grease board in the visitors' dressing room at the JoyceCenter in South Bend on Monday, someone from Connecticut hadwritten a formula to describe the matchup between the undefeatedand top-ranked Huskies and unbeaten No. 3 Notre Dame: BIG GAME +SELLOUT + ESPN + ROAD TEST + UNDEFEATED = CRUSH JOB. Rightformula, wrong room.

Before the first sellout crowd for women's basketball at NotreDame and a national TV audience, not only did the Irish topplethe Huskies 92-76 and end the longest women's winning streak inthe nation (30 games), but they also forged a power shift inwomen's hoops. "I saw a feature on TV the other night about teamsthat might be able to beat UConn," said Notre Dame coach MuffetMcGraw after the victory, "and we weren't even mentioned."

Why should they have been? As well as the Irish have played thisseason, few observers felt they belonged on the same plane asUConn and Tennessee. Notre Dame had never beaten a No. 1 team andover a span of 18 years was 0-24 against the Huskies and the LadyVols. Joe Smith, the director of Women's Basketball News Service,who has covered the distaff game since 1973, predicted a 27-pointUConn win.

What Smith and others failed to account for was Irish center RuthRiley. Playing all 40 minutes, Riley, a 6'5" senior, scored 29points (including 13 for 13 from the foul line) and had 12rebounds. Decked out in her trademark headband, Riley atoned fora foul-plagued, four-point effort against the Huskies last Feb.26. And "her presence defensively was more impressive than it wasoffensively," said Huskies coach Geno Auriemma, whose defendingnational champs suffered their worst loss in seven seasons. "Herpresence in the lane turned us into a jump-shooting team."

Only twice before has a Notre Dame basketball team been rankedNo. 1, as this one surely will be next week. The first time waswhen the men's team shocked UCLA and Bill Walton in 1974,breaking the Bruins' record 88-game winning streak. On asimilarly wintry day in South Bend 27 years later, the bestplayer on the floor was again a pivot player known for headbandsand a feathery touch, only this time she was on the winning side."I don't think I've ever seen anybody dominate a game like this,"said McGraw, edging into hyperbole. "She was better than BillWalton today."

She was, in a word, Ruthian. --John Walters

Rising MississippiA Straitlaced Rebel Leader

Faith is a word spoken often these days at Ole Miss. How else toexplain the fact that a team picked to finish last in the SECWest was, as of Monday, sitting atop the division with a 14-2record (2-1 in league play) and ranked No. 21 in the nation? Howelse to account for the fact that a program that reached one NCAAtournament before 1997 is now a good bet to reel in its fourthNCAA bid in the last five seasons? And how else to explain thefact that Mississippi's guiding force is 6'8", 255-pound seniorcenter Rahim Lockhart, who two years ago was one misstep frombeing kicked off the team?

During his first two seasons Lockhart took the title of Rebel tooliterally. Ole Miss coach Rod Barnes constantly had to hound himabout going to class, showing up on time for practice andcontrolling his temper on the court. Barnes suspended Lockharttwice for a total of four games in January 1999, the second timewhen Lockhart was arrested for allegedly shoplifting a cassettetape, a charge that was dropped. "I was a wild child, the life ofevery party," Lockhart says. "If Coach heard of somebody gettinginto trouble, he would ask, 'Where's Rahim?' I had a huge chip onmy shoulder, but I realized I had to change. I compare it tobeing born again."

Within days of his arrest Lockhart learned that his girlfriend,Tarrah White, was pregnant, and he asked his mother, Trudy, tomail him the Bible he now carries with him everywhere. He marriedTarrah that July, and in October they had a daughter, Amirah."After the arrest I let my faith in Rahim overrule logic," Barnessays. "I gave him one last chance, and I've never seen any kidmake a transformation this dramatic."

Today Lockhart is at peace, punctual and an honor student insocial studies/education. Through Monday he led the Rebels inscoring with 12.9 points per game, ranked fifth in the SEC inrebounding (9.0) and in field goal percentage (56.8%), and wasthird in blocks (1.8). Largely because of him, a youngMississippi team that starts two freshmen and a sophomore hasbeaten ranked teams Oklahoma and Southern Cal and broken an11-game SEC road losing streak, with an 81-68 win at Vanderbilton Jan. 6. Four days later, in a 53-48 victory at Arkansas, theRebels held the Hogs, the West Division's preseason favorite, totheir lowest point total ever in an SEC game. That win also set arecord for total victories by an Ole Miss four-year class."Sometimes it feels that this program is born again," Lockhartsays. "Ever since I've been here, there's been an increasingsense of purpose and a faith that we can defeat teams we'verarely beaten before."

The Rebels' stellar start has been built around the SEC'sstingiest defense and inspiration from what once seemed anunlikely source. "I've watched Rahim grow from a spoiled boy intoa responsible family man," senior guard Jason Flanigan says. "Weneed that kind of maturity to help lead us in tight games."

Indeed, last Saturday in Oxford, Georgia upset Ole Miss 70-66 byoutscoring the Rebels 22-12 after Lockhart fouled out with 7:21left. Lockhart didn't gripe when he met Tarrah, who's pregnantwith their second child, afterward. He held Amirah in one handand signed an autograph with the other, scribbling his name,jersey number 44 and the citation for a Bible verse, Romans 12:2,that sums up both him and the Ole Miss program: "Do not conformany longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed bythe renewing of your mind." --Tim Crothers

For complete scores and recruiting news, plus more from SethDavis and Grant Wahl, go to cnnsi.com/basketball/college.

When Rick Pitino resigned as president and coach of the BostonCeltics on Jan. 8, he loosed a fusillade of rumors over where hewill land next. Feeding the frenzy of speculation is the numberof big-time programs--listed below along with the skinny ontheir chances of landing Pitino--whose fans are antsy for ahigher-profile coach. The runner-up prize for the losers of thePitino sweepstakes? Bob Knight, anyone?

UNLV: They love Armani suits on Gucci Row, but the rest of theMountain West Conference is strictly Wal-Mart. UNLV, however, wasseen as the early favorite to nab Pitino because it has somebuilt-in advantages. It already has a vacancy--sorry, Max Good--andcan pony up the requisite cash, a package reportedly worth morethan a million a year.

UCLA: Sources close to Pitino say this is the job he reallywants--L.A. is a much grander stage than L.V.--and there's tensionbetween Bruins coach Steve Lavin and athletic director PeterDalis over the fact that Dalis has twice spoken to Pitinorecently. One sticking point: UCLA would have to pay Pitino a lotmore than it's giving Lavin, who makes $485,000 annually.

INDIANA: Pitino is one of the few coaches who could surmount thesniping of Knight loyalists. He would also be able to recruit ona national basis while benefiting from a local pipeline thatdoesn't exist at UNLV. The big impediment could be Rick's wife,Joanne, who's said to be disinclined to move to another collegetown.

MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor is bigger than Bloomington, but is it bigenough to pass the Joanne test? More to the point, could the BoyKing really be happy in a place where football reigns?

MASSACHUSETTS: Pitino's alma mater was 4-10 through Sunday underBruiser Flint, but the feeling is strong that Pitino is washed upin the Bay State.

The Joe College Report

Perpetually dyspeptic Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins was so angryat his Bearcats after their Dec. 30 loss to Toledo that he bootedthem out of their locker room at the Shoemaker Center. Their newdigs? The men's soccer dressing room. "We've had champions dressin that locker room," said Huggins of the Bearcats, who have wonthe last five Conference USA titles, "and our guys right now arenot playing or working like champions." As of last week HuggyBear's charges were back for a second round in their originaldressing room, but for how long? After all, fans know about theirrecent spate of bad performances in the second round....

Alabama freshman forward Gerald Wallace is proving that he wasright not to go straight to the NBA. He started the season witha bang, leading the SEC in scoring with a 20.3 average after sixgames. But in nine outings since then, through Monday, he'dproduced 8.0 points a game and his minutes had diminished.Worse, in his first three conference games he'd averaged a mere5.7. "Once he got into the SEC schedule, everything got faster,bigger, stronger," says Crimson Tide coach Mark Gottfried. "He'slearning, like all freshmen." ...

An actual passage from the Florida State media notes before its99-72 loss to Duke on Jan. 4: "Florida State is undefeated, 4-0,when it outscores its opponents." Too bad the flounderingsemi-'Noles are 0-11 when being outscored. Bewildered coachSteve Robinson has performed the singular feat of making formerFlorida State coach Pat Kennedy look like John Wooden.